


Stolen Heart

by ClomWrites



Series: Bly Drabbles [17]
Category: The Haunting of Bly Manor (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Blood, Crime, F/F, I don't know it wrote me, Oops, Spiderman Meet And Greet, sorry - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-27
Updated: 2021-02-26
Packaged: 2021-03-18 03:47:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29727843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ClomWrites/pseuds/ClomWrites
Summary: When Dani drops in on Jamie in the most unexpected way, Jamie gets more than she bargained for.Also known as the Cat Burglar I never thought I'd write and that literally no one asked for.
Relationships: Dani Clayton/Jamie
Series: Bly Drabbles [17]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1993213
Comments: 42
Kudos: 120





	Stolen Heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CPRMostlyReviews](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CPRMostlyReviews/gifts).



> This is more AU than I ever thought I'd go, but the idea just popped into my head and wouldn't let go. 
> 
> Probably a 2 parter, possibly a 3 parter. 
> 
> And though she didn't ask for it, I'm giving this to CPRMostlyReviews because she writes the most essay length, considered, LOVELY comments and I wanted to give a little thanks.

1997 – London

There are stranger ways to meet ones future wife, Jamie supposes, but she had never come across one. Perhaps at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, or at the top of Mount Everest, those would both be spectacular, but in her mind, nothing quite surpasses _their_ story.

The one they’ve told absolutely nobody.

Because meeting your future wife when she’s hanging upside down, dangling over a display of diamond encrusted jewellery, and you’re on your first day of your job and suddenly frozen to the spot, is not really the kind of story you can just tell at a dinner party.

They’re both frozen actually. Jamie, hand on her holster – it’s a stun gun not a real gun, but she wouldn’t know how to use either. She’d lied on her job application, hardly a first, but now she’s gripping the handle and wondering if she just can’t figure it out on the fly. The dangling woman, and it is quite clear from the shape of her that she is a woman despite the black balaclava shielding her face, is also frozen, and staring at Jamie. Well, she’s still moving, swaying slightly and twisting ever so. In fact, she gives the slightest push and pirouettes around but it does nothing but turn her into a dangling ceiling ornament, causing the very softest “Well fuck,” to be whispered out.

Jamie tries very hard not to smile.

She removes her hand from her holster because something, gut instinct maybe, tells her she won’t need it. She spends a few seconds looking at the upside down figure in front of her, all sleek and in figure hugging black, a small black satchel wrapped around her. The leather boots on her feet look expensive, and Jamie would be jealous except the current situation has pushed out the possibility of any new emotions from her person.

She moves closer now, tentatively approaching the woman and is pleased when the woman does nothing to suggest she’s a threat. She doesn’t know what to do, so she circles around the dangling human and comes back around to the front. Eventually, because she just can’t help herself, she reaches forward and very, ever so carefully, peels the balaclava down and off. It’s probably a really stupid idea. If this woman knows that her identity is known, then Jamie is in even more danger. As soon as she sees the face, sees the now cascading blonde hair that’s been given gravity approval to dangle, she knows she’s in more trouble than she could have possibly anticipated.

Danielle Clayton, famous socialite and heir to the Wingrave fortune, thanks to her uncle’s inability to produce children, is hanging upside down in front of her. Every Londoner knew Danielle Clayton. Darling of the tabloids, the television, the camera and the glitterati. Half wild child half charity doyenne, Dani Clayton is practically an icon. She’s also still upside down in front of Jamie.

“Er, hello,” says Dani. “Caught me in a bit of a tight spot.”

Jamie feels the corner of her mouth twitch up. “I’d say I caught you at more than that.”

Dani gives her a wry smile and then, with core strength that Jamie could only dream of, attempts to curl herself up and play with the straps connected to her right leg. “Dammit, buckle is jammed.” She gives up and lets herself dangle again.

She looks Jamie up and down, and Jamie suddenly feels all the more self-conscious in her nylon blue uniform and dumb hat. She’s hated the hat from the get go but Tom, her boss, has insisted that all the guards wear them. He also pointed out that this really should be a two man job but the big boss, the one who owns the house, is a cheapskate so Jamie is set with night shift. With her experience, after all, she should be fine.

Once again, she’d lied on her application, because she’s fairly sure that if they knew she’d done time in the joint rather than time on the other side, then she wouldn’t have a job as the solo night guard keeping Lord Peter Quint’s family jewels safe. Then again, she’s also pretty sure Tom is an ex con just from the look of him, so maybe they hire family.

Jamie crosses her arms.

“Don’t suppose you could help me out?” Dani gives her a hopeful, and quite charming look. Jamie reckons it would work wonders on almost any woman and definitely any bloke. It’s not _quite_ doing the job on her though. Not under these circumstances.

“Uh. No.”

“Damn.” Dani smiles again. “Had to try.”

“I should call for backup.” She should, but her hand goes nowhere near her belt where the crappy radio is. Mick is half asleep at the traffic booth at the front of the property, and Joel is definitely asleep in the garden shed. She doesn’t know that either of them would do much good in the current circumstances but she is supposed to call them.

“Oh please don’t, we’ve barely started getting to know each other.”

Jamie can’t help but cock an eyebrow at that one. “That what we doing?”

Dani’s hands spread. “Sure. Why not? I’m upside down, you seem nice. We could have a chat.”

“You’re dangling from the ceiling.”

“Hmm. Noticed that did you?”

“You’re Danielle Clayton.”

“Oh dear…” Dani makes a face. “Noticed that too.”

“You’re a fucking heiress. You can’t be a cat burglar.”

Dani grins at her. “In my defence, I wasn’t here to steal the cat.”

Jamie pinches the bridge of her nose. “I can’t… this is the weirdest thing that’s ever happened to me.”

“Wish I could say the same but I once went to a party at Andy Warhol’s house where everyone but me was on acid.” Dani sways softly. “Look, is there any chance you can let me down. I mean, keep me prisoner, sure, call the police whatever, but all the blood I own is in my skull, my leg is going numb and I’m getting a headache.”

Jamie narrows her eyes. “Do you have weapons on you?”

Dani, to her credit, does not lie. “Yep. Two knives in my boots, one on my belt and a rather nasty piece of cheese wire. I use it to cut things not people though. Suppose it could count as a weapon.”

Jamie sighs and steps forward. “If I undo that buckle, you’re going to fall.”

There’s that look again, from Dani, the one that Jamie thinks could con Kings out of their Empires. “Oh I trust you to catch me.”

“Can’t be doing that if I’m also undoing the buckle,” Jamie points out.

“I have an idea, but you’ll have to trust me.”

Jamie doesn’t trust anyone less at this point but she makes the hand motion.

“Come lift me up, bride style I think it’s called.”

Jamie feels the hair on the back of her neck prickle as she has a flash vision of Dani in a white dress and herself in a tuxedo. Absurd. She does it anyway, moving forward to cradle Dani in her arms until she’s now more horizontal than vertical. Well, diagonal anyway.

“OK, if you take the weight off me, under my bum, I should be able to undo the buckle and you can catch me.”

“Is this a crafty way to get me to put my hands on your arse?” Jamie does it anyway, it’s a nice arse.

“Absolutely.” Grins like that should be illegal Jamie thinks.

It works though. She gets enough of the weight of Dani under her that she can undo the stuck buckle and then, low and behold, Dani is tumbling into her arms. It’s not the neat catch one would expect in a movie, because Dani is very slightly larger than Jamie and she can’t take her whole weight, despite years of shifting heavy soil bags. Instead it’s more of a stagger backwards and then depositing Dani on her feet before they both fall over.

It leaves them standing a few feet apart, Jamie panting slightly, and staring at each other. Now what?

“Well. Thanks for that.” Dani looks up to the dangling rope from the ceiling. “That’s going to be a bugger to get back.” She’s rubbing her leg, shaking it slightly, trying to get circulation back.

“I’m sure the police can use it as evidence,” Jamie mumbles. She scratches her own leg, warily eyeing off her favourite intruder.

Dani laughs. “You’re not calling the police.”

Jamie narrows her eyes again and her hand goes to the hilt of the stun gun.

“Oh put that away, you won’t need it. I’m not going to hurt you. If you call for help I’ll put my hands up and go peacefully.”

Jamie feels her hand shift away from the handle at her belt, almost as though it’s obeying Dani’s words by itself. She hopes she isn’t blushing, thinks she might be. “Ok.. then..” She is supposed to call for back up. She is. She doesn’t. “Why are you here?”

Dani dusts her hands off on her pants. “To steal those.” She points to the six diamond encrusted pieces in the glass cabinet. Jamie has to hand it to her. She’s honest, if brazen, and it’s a bit novel. Beautiful, cultured honest women do not drop from the ceiling into Jamie Taylor’s arms. Not on wet Tuesday nights, and not in the middle of breaking and entering.

“Do this a lot then?” She means it as a joke, she really does, but there’s a sudden spark of awareness and her eyes widen. “Oh my god. You’re… you’re the Kensington Shadow.”

Dani gives a tiny bow, with a tilt head of acknowledgement. “In the flesh I’m afraid. First time anyone’s come close to catching me too, you should be proud.”

Neither of them mention the fact that Jamie literally only managed it due to stuck buckle. They just eye each other carefully as Jamie’s head flies through all the information it can find. The Shadow, a notorious cat burglar, stealing from the extra rich and melting into the shadows. Never stole anything that could be traced, only jewels, money, and once or twice some priceless artifacts. Marrying that notion with the charity darling of the jet set made Jamie’s head spin.

“But you’re rich!”

Dani gives her another nod of acknowledgement. “Yep.”

“Is this how you got rich?”

Dani’s laugh is like angels playing the harpsichord, Jamie would swear on it. “No, heavens no. This is a hobby.”

“Cat burglary is your… hobby?”

Dani takes a step forward, towards the pedestal, and runs a finger along the glass edge of the box. Jamie jumps a little in her skin, waiting for alarms to blare, but nothing happens. “Oh calm down, I disabled them an hour ago.”

Jamie swallows. “But… why?”

She watches Dani walk around the plinth and crosses her arms. Somehow, when Dani says she isn’t dangerous, Jamie believes her. It’s not true of course, but Jamie suspects Danielle Clayton’s danger lies in her charm, and not in anything carried on her person.

“Do you know what these are?” She looks at Jamie, thoughtful in her expression.

“Bloody expensive diamonds.”

Dani laughs again. Jamie really wants to keep making her do that, even if she shouldn’t. Her eyes flick to the security camera in the corner, the one she has just remembered is there.

“Also disabled, don’t panic.” Dani runs her finger around the plinth again. “These are more than just diamonds you know.”

“There’s some gold in there too,” Jamie says, laced with sarcasm. “Rich things for rich people, kept under glass. Great use of money.”

Dani, to her surprise, gives her an open face of warmth and a smile that could light up a ballroom. “Exactly. _Exactly._ These are here, doing no one any good, and they’re made from blood.”

“Blood?”

“Sierra Leone – that’s where these diamonds come from. The mine owned by the Quints personally. These are pulled up to the surface by children, because they’re cheap and fit so well down small holes. Kids as young as four, put to work by Lord Peter Quint’s company. He knows you know, I’ve heard him brag about it.”

Jamie feels a little sick.

“Don’t have to tell you what the death rate is like,” Dani continues. “I think you can imagine. Then the money? Laundered through companies funding civil war and death squads. So yes, these are not diamonds. They’re blood.” She taps the glass for emphasis.

“Fuck.”

“Just sitting here, doing no good for anyone, all curled up in Peter Fucking Quint’s little castle.” Dani grimaces.

Jamie cocks her head. Something gives her pause, an understanding from that one sentence. “This is personal.”

“Yes,” Dani’s head whips around to look at her, but once again, there’s no artifice in her or her answer. “Yes it is.”

“What happened?”

“Does it matter?”

Jamie spreads her hands in front of her. “Given what you’re currently doing, probably does, yeah.”

“You judge, jury and executioner here,” Dani looks around with a slight smile, a sad one. “All by yourself?”

“S’pose I must be. No one else here. Tell me what happened.”

Dani runs a finger along the plinth. “He started dating a friend of mine. Knew he was bad news, but she was poor, he was rich. It’s my fault, I met her at university, introduced her to my circle. That’s how they met. So, you see, my fault.”

Jamie makes a noise, one that says quite clearly that she disagrees, but also that she wants the story to continue.

“You know how it goes. Lust, thinking it’s love, mistaking limerence for forever. Then, arguments, god they fought,” Dani sighs, putting one gloved hand on the glass of the case. “They were on a yacht. I was supposed to be there but I got caught up in some issues with one of my charities. They say she fell over board. I don’t think so.”

“You think he killed her,” Jamie says softly.

“Pretty sure, yeah.” Dani looks at her. “Doesn’t matter does it, one more person lost to the many he’s thrown aside along the way. Her life means no more or less than any of those children, or innocent people gunned down by the wars he funds. For whom the bell tolls and all of that.”

“But then, if no man is an island, he deserves to answer for those crimes,” Jamie nods at the glass. “You think stealing from him will do that?”

Dani shrugs. “Not in the slightest. It’ll be a wasp sting at best, but it was all I had. Plus, melting these down and selling off the stones will fund my AIDS charity for the next three years. Figure they may as well go to something good.”

Jamie tries to make sense of everything she’s heard. Dani, she reckons, is more complicated than anyone she’s ever met, but the hilarious notion that she’s been stealing from the rich to give to the poor just makes more sense than anything else Jamie can think of. Up until now, Jamie’s life has been very much focused on survival. Yet, along the way, she can name umpteen dozen people she’s seen tearing down those around her, causing pain, to her and so many others. She could name them, even if she couldn’t name most of the people torn down. She too, has felt so many times, the sting of wanting revenge? No, not revenge, comeuppance.

She’s never believed that people really got their due but here, in front of her, is an opportunity she cannot deny. One she itches to grasp.

“How are you with safes?”

“Expert.”

Dani’s confidence is startlingly attractive, and Jamie wishes her body’s inappropriate responses would just take a second to chill. She grabs her keys from her waist, tosses them to Dani who catches them out of the air with grace.

“Third door upstairs, on the left. There’s a hidden panel in the floor in the northwest corner. Wouldn’t have a clue how to open the damn safe though.”

Dani stares at her, just stares, and then slowly starts backing towards the stairs. “What are you going to do?

“Stand here and stare at the jewels I’m supposed to be guarding yeah? Technically my job.”

She doesn’t watch Dani go, somehow ridiculously convinced that she’s less guilty of abetting that way. Everything she knows about Lord Peter Quint, who she’s never met, makes the story ring true. She’d taken the job because she’d sensed they weren’t doing too deep a job on background checks. Jamie had sensed the dirt all over the job from the get go. For that exact reason, she knows, she’s got the job. It helps her believe Dani. It just makes too much sense.

Jamie knows people. Her gut instincts have _never_ led her wrong. Dani Clayton is not the bad guy here.

She’s bloody impressed when not ten minutes later Dani emerges from the shadows and a grim look on her face. She taps the satchel still secured around her gently. “Enough in here to sink him forever. Thanks.”

Jamie nods. “Better than a wasp sting.” Then she sighs.

“Guess I’d better go then,” Dani says. She actually looks sad about it, which makes Jamie’s chest clench.

“Well, yes, but..”

“Mmm,” Dani is smiling at her, softly, which makes what she says next bloody hard.

“Reckon you could clock me first?”

The bizarre combination of shock, almost laughter, and surprise is a heady look on Dani’s face. “You want me to do what?”

“Hit me.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Look, just whack me on the head with something solid. Do it here,” she taps the thickest part of her skull, “Shouldn’t do much damage but at least I’ll have plausible deniability.”

Dani looks green. “I… don’t think I can do that.”

“C’mon, please. Then you can take the jewellery too, make a clean sweep. And I won’t get done for it.”

“I don’t even know your name!”

“It’s Jamie. Jamie Taylor.” She almost offers a hand to shake and then realises how ridiculous that would be.

“Jamie…” It’s like Dani is tasting the name in her mouth, and Jamie has to swallow. “Suits you.”

“Anyway, there’s like, an umbrella stand over there. Or the vase. Reckon they’d both do the job.”

“I can’t hit you!”

Jamie crosses her arms. “I’d say it’s the least you can do! After all the help I’ve given you _breaking and entering.”_

“I’ve never hit anyone ever.”

“Just imagine I’m Lord Quint.”

“Not possible,” Dani’s eyes rake up and down Jamie’s form. “Absolutely not possible.”

How Jamie has gone from the most boring job in the history of the world to flirting with a burglar, aiding and abetting in crime, and now begging to be sconned she has no idea. Still, there were worse Tuesdays.

“Look, I’m gonna lose my job anyway. The least you can do is stop me going back to jail.” She winces when she realises what she’s said instead of what she meant to say. “Keep me from being a person of interest and all that.”

Dani still looks dubious. Instead of responding to Jamie, she carefully unscrews the glass plinth, stuffs the loot into her back and instead leaves a small white card with a black calligraphy KS on it, and puts the plinth back. “There, now you’ll hardly be a person of interest. Assuming you have alibis for some of my other jobs.”

Jamie had been inside for half of them so, yes, she had an alibi. She also had form for B and E and knew alibis were useless. “You know that won’t work. I’m still going to be their only suspect.”

Dani blanches. “I just… I can’t hit you. I can’t hurt you!”

“You don’t know me.”

“Sure I do, we’ve just spent an hour together. Besides, I don’t hurt people, I never have.”

Jamie believes her, fervently. She walks over to the side of the gallery and picks up a small metal pole from which she unclips a red rope. Who Lord Quint is keeping from standing too close to his precious oil painting in this private gallery she didn’t know, but it went along with the rest of his complete nonsense she supposes. “You know that card is like, really naff yeah?”

Dani looks inside the plinth. “Is it?”

“Completely. Like you’re trying to be inside a novel.”

“Hmm. Maybe?” She squints. “I thought it was cool.”

Jamie laughs, louder than she expects. Dani Clayton, it turns out, is a bit of a dork. Jamie loves it. She hands her the pole. “C’mon Clayton. You owe me.”

Dani handles the metal rod gingerly. “Seems like a terrible way of paying you back.”

Jamie crosses her arms, then uncrosses one and taps the back of her head, off to one side. “Here, not too hard, but enough to get blood.”

Dani goes completely white and for a second Jamie thinks she might have to catch her as she faints, gripping the pole harder. “Shit.”

“I promise, I’ll be fine. I have a hard head.”

Dani holds the rod like a baseball bat and Jamie turns around, steeling herself for the blow. It does come, and it’s pathetic. She barely even feels it, and has to stop herself from laughing. She turns back. “You’re gonna have to do it harder than that.”

Dani does look green around the gills now, so Jamie carefully rests a hand on her arm, coming closer than she’s ever been. From here she can see the gorgeous sea blue of Dani’s eyes, the red bow of her lip. She’s never wanted to kiss someone more in her life. “Please? For me?”

“I can’t believe you’re asking me to knock you out.”

“I’m asking you to keep me from taking the fall for this. I have a record and as soon as they find out, I’ll be up for it.”

Dani’s lips become a thin line before she nods, just once.

Jamie turns back around, steps away. Her trust in Dani to do a good job of something when asked earnestly is both rewarded and, as it turns out, very, very painful. Her head explodes in pain enough to drop her to her knees, stars exploding in front of her eyes. She moans, because she can’t not, and her hand comes up to grab the offending part of her skull. On it she feels the sticky warmth of her own blood, and manages, just once, to croak out “thanks,” before keeling over.

The last thing she remembers before Dani leaves is Dani kneeling next to her, and she can just make out watery tears in those blue eyes, and a hand on her cheek. “I’m sorry. Thank you.” And then she’s gone.

Jamie doesn’t quite pass out, but she does lie there with her eyes closed until the pain has washed away a little. When she finally sits up, groggy, there’s a fair puddle of blood on the floor. Maybe Dani had done slightly too good a job. She grasps for her radio, and manages to get Mick on the second try. Its only five minutes before flashing blue and white lights show through the windows as she slumps backwards into the wall. So much for her new job.


End file.
